Convening and research to consider how Medicaid and SCHIP could be used to provide health coverage for more Americans

The purpose of this project is to explore how the Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) could be used as building blocks to reach the goal of stable and affordable coverage for all people living in the U.S. Medicaid is now the nation's largest health care financing program, enrolling more than 51 million people and spending $258 billion in 2002. It is the cornerstone of coverage for low-income people and has been an important platform for any major coverage expansion. Given the upcoming reauthorization of SCHIP and the anticipated debate over Medicaid block grants, it will be important to understand what is necessary to preserve the platform for coverage expansions that these programs represent and how they may be structured to help the nation meet the Institute of Medicine's criteria for coverage: universality, continuity, affordability, and sustainability for the populations covered by Medicaid and SCHIP. We also need to understand how the Foundation can use them to promote its coverage objectives, particularly with regard to coverage for all children up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The project will be considered successful if the convening and analytic activities it undertakes add value to the policy debate over future directions for Medicaid and SCHIP.